South Windsor Woman Sentenced to Prison for Fatal Crash

South Windsor’s Sara Ballard, 20, was sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison Tuesday for the deaths of two teen passengers in a 2013 crash in which she was speeding and under the influence of marijuana.

Ballard was also sentenced to five years of probation after she pleaded guilty to two counts of vehicular manslaughter and two counts of vehicular assault for injuring two others, according to NBC Connecticut.

Ballard was reportedly driving a Ford SUV between 84-90 mph while under the influence of marijuana when the vehicle careened off Abbe Road in South Windsor and struck a tree on May 25, 2013.

East Windsor’s Brook Wormstedt, 15, and Matthew Masse, 18, of Vernon, were killed in the crash and two other teens were injured.

Wormstedt’s grandmother, Josephine Barnett, spoke during the hearing and said “Our lives stopped that night she died in that car,” according to NBC.

Masse’s mother, Susan Masse, said her son was “full of promise and he had a future that would touch so many lives,” according to the Hartford Courant.

The Courant also reported that Judge Laura Baldini handed down a sentence that was almost exactly halfway between the minimum and maximum sentences that were agreed upon as part of Ballard’s plea deal.

Read the full story at the Hartford Courant here.